Tatia Slouka plays Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto as she rehearses at her home on May 18, 2017, in Littleton. The 17-year-old is going to New York this summer to play with the Carnegie Hall Youth Orchestra.

Tatia Slouka remembers the conversation that started her down the path to becoming one of the finest young bassoonists in the country. She was at recess in fifth grade, talking with a friend about the instruments they wanted to play when they moved on to middle school orchestra. At the time, Slouka thought she was going to be a saxophonist like her mom.

“A friend said, ‘I want to play that baboon thing,’” Slouka recalled. “And I said, ‘The bassoon?’ I thought, ‘That sounds interesting.’ So I picked it up and I’ve loved it ever since.”

And she’s not monkeying around when it comes to playing the distinctive, 4-foot-tall woodwind, either.

The 17-year-old, who will soon finish her junior year at the Denver School of the Arts, is among 116 16- to 19-year-old musicians from across the country named to the 2017 National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America. Roughly 1,000 youths sent in audition videos, said officials with the orchestra, which is organized through Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. Five bassoonists made the cut, including Slouka.

Slouka and the other young musicians will gather in New York in July for an intensive, three-week training program at a local college. After that, the group will set out on a slate of high-profile appearances and residency events including a performance and recording for NPR, a concert at Carnegie Hall on July 21 and extended visits to Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia. The latter events, which include residencies with local musicians in each country, represent the National Youth Orchestra’s Latin American debut.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Slouka said last week while practicing in the music room of her family’s Littleton-area home. “I just love being around people who are passionate and nerdy as I am. The collaboration between musicians, I think, is so fun because we really connect.”

Including daily practice at school, weekly, three-hour Saturday rehearsals with the Denver Young Artists Orchestra and a minimum of two hours of at-home practice daily, Slouka estimates she plays her bassoon well over 20 hours each week. She recently began sculpting her own reeds for the rich, warm-sounding, double reed instrument, a process that takes practice all its own.

According to her father, Michal Slouka, Tatia’s passion and commitment to bassoon is a product of the way she’s wired. He remembers an elementary school-age Tatia as a voracious reader who sometimes was caught reading books at 1 a.m. She brings the same approach to music, often practicing into the wee hours, he said.

“We have never had to ask if she did her reading assignments or if she practiced her instrument. On the contrary, we had to manage her sleep,” Michal Slouka said, joking that he and his wife have never caught Tatia up late watching TV or playing video games. “I think she is probably a little crazy, but in a good way. She is a true lover of the music.”

Colorado Symphony bassoonist Roger Soren has been teaching Slouka since she was in the sixth grade. She takes private lessons and works with him at Denver School of the Arts where he is a practicing artist. He recalled that he spent Thanksgiving with the Sloukas a few years ago and brought new music for Tatia to look at after dinner. Only she didn’t wait. While everyone else was eating, music began to fill the air.

Soren noted the teen’s commitment is clearly paying off. Regular trips to music camps, time spent attending symphony performances and participation in things like the National Youth Orchestra will help Slouka with an important aspect of becoming a professional musician, he said: networking. He pointed out the Youth Orchestra’s conductor this year is Marin Alsop, who previously lead the Colorado Symphony for more than a decade. He’s hoping Alsop will take Slouka under her wing. He is confident Slouka will hold her own on the stage.

“She’s very level-headed and even-keeled,” he said. “Many students, when they get in concerts, they get more uptight. With Tatia, I don’t really feel like that. I feel like she can play her best. She’s got such a maturity.”

Slouka said she believes playing with the National Youth Orchestra will provide her with great insight into the life of a professional musician. But really, for her, the most important thing is how music makes people feel. She said that her favorite piece, Igor Stravinsky’s “The Firebird”, still brings tears to her eyes at times.

“Music for me is something that does something nothing else really can,” she said. “I think with every concert and every piece I play, I can bring more joy and more beauty into the world.”

Joe Rubino focuses on consumer news for The Denver Post. He wrote for the Broomfield Enterprise, Boulder Daily Camera and YourHub before joining the Post's business team in 2017. A Denver native, he attended Kennedy High School and the CU journalism school. He once flew a plane for 30 seconds on assignment.